


Tiny Stars

by petit_moineau



Series: Partout [7]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Internalized Misogyny, Love Confessions, Virginia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-16
Updated: 2013-04-16
Packaged: 2017-12-08 16:40:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/763626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petit_moineau/pseuds/petit_moineau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are a lot of things that Cosette could say.  “I think Courfeyrac is in love with you,” she blurts out, and then she gasps like a girl in a bad 1950s movie because this wasn’t supposed to happen, she didn’t give her brain permission to say that.</p><p>Cosette doesn’t take her eyes from the road but she can feel the force of Éponine’s side-eye.  Éponine bursts out cackling.  “Oh, man, oh, man,” she whoops, “you’ve got to be kidding me.  If you were looking for a way to get me to open up, you’ve found it.”  She chokes out, still chuckling.</p><p>“It’s not funny!” Cosette says defensively.</p><p>“Courfeyrac is in love with everyone, including you, Jehan, and that girl who works at the bagel shop on 123rd,” Éponine says with finality, twirling her hair around her finger and propping her feet on the dash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiny Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zoe_courfeyhot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoe_courfeyhot/gifts).



Cosette is probably closer to Éponine than anyone.  Éponine would sooner die than admit it, but she doesn’t make friends well.  It’s relatively hard to make friends when your default setting is to bristle at people and go on the defensive.  Not to mention that, as Enjolras had once explained, people of a certain class tend to look down on people with certain accents…and Éponine is identifiable approximately half a block away both due to her twangy Brooklyn accent and the fact that she tends to shout-talk.  Cosette is closer to Éponine than anyone, and has been ever since she came bearing vanilla chai in the library during freshman year.  Éponine learned how to break in pointe shoes and massage feet and ankles, and Cosette learned the apparently _extremely important_ differences between Monet and Manet so she could edit Éponine’s papers.  They take trips to the end of the subway line for the hell of it and show up at the other’s apartment with trashy movies and skin-your-hide Indian takeout.  Cosette is closer to Éponine than anyone, which is why her absence cuts Cosette to the quick.

Physically speaking, Éponine hasn’t gone anywhere.  She shows up at meetings, works at the café, goes to class, and studies in the library.  She banters with Grantaire, bickers with Enjolras, talks hockey with Bahorel and classic poetry with Jehan.  It isn’t until Marius asks Cosette—with Courfeyrac standing some feet behind her—“Hey, when was the last time you talked to Ponine?” that Cosette realizes it’s been longer than she cares to think, and she’s not even sure how it happened, but she feels a touch relieved when Courfeyrac says she’s shut him out, too.

Cosette has never been so nervous as when she let herself into Éponine’s apartment the week before Thanksgiving break.  _Maybe I should just drop the tea and run,_ she thinks.  “Um, hey, I brought some vanilla chai,” she says, a blush creeping up her cheeks.

Éponine stares at her from behind her reading glasses, standing there in a ragged oversize t-shirt from Grantaire’s closet and leggings filled with holes.  “I’m studying for my Asian art midterm...”

 _Shit, shit, shit._   “I guess it’s a good thing I’m not staying long,” Cosette smiles.  “I wanted to invite you to come home with me for Thanksgiving.”  She can see Éponine bristle slightly, which she expected, so she plows on before Éponine can open her mouth.  “Not that I think you don’t have anywhere else you can go, it’s just that I…” she bites her lip, trying to decide how much to say.  _It feels like we’ve grown apart,_ she wants to say.  “I can’t imagine anyone better to spend my Thanksgiving with, and in my favorite place,” she finishes.

Cosette’s not expecting Éponine to say yes, but she does.

\-----

In exchange for setting Feuilly up with the pastry girl at the café, Éponine borrows his car.  Her driving borders on terrifying, and she only learned over the summer, having never had a need for a car, but she has a theoretically better understanding of how to get out of New York City than Cosette does.  Cosette drinks in big gulps of cool air from the open window while she tries very hard not to puke on the floorboard.  To make up for it, Éponine lets Cosette pick the music.  “Wow,” she whistles when the fourth ABBA song comes on.  “Your taste in music _sucks.”_

“At least I don’t listen to Lana Del Rey,” Cosette shudders.  They have a long standing feud over whether Marina and the Diamonds or Lana Del Rey is better, and they can’t understand why Jehan exasperatedly asks them why they don’t like _both._

“Lana Del Rey sings about unhealthy relationships, poverty, and alcohol dependence; she’s perfect for me,” Éponine deadpans with a wry smile.

Cosette doesn’t really know what to say.  This is the most they’ve talked in probably weeks.  Cosette assumes (rightly) that it has something to do with Marius.  Éponine has never so much as breathed a word about it, but Cosette suspects there used to be a Thing between the two of them.  For most of the time they’ve been together, Éponine has _appeared_ to be fine with it, but Cosette and Marius have gotten more serious.  _That kind of thing tends to happen when you date for a year,_ Cosette thinks annoyedly, then sighs out loud.  This weekend isn’t about her.  Not really.  “Hey, do you want to take a little detour?”  she asks.  “It would be a good time to switch drivers, too.”

“Where?”

“D.C.”

\-----

Éponine is like a kid in a candy shop.

“What do you mean they’re all _free?”_ she breathes, eyes wide as they stand on the National Mall, monuments to dead presidents and scientific progress and minority history and obscure art all around.

“Yes, Éponine,” Cosette grins, “all the presidential monuments and Smithsonian museums are free.”

“Does that mean we can go to all of them?!”

“I don’t think we’d really have time t—“ Cosette is wrenched in the direction of the Natural History Museum, laughing as the passersby stare at two girls running down the Mall, one in beat-up leather boots, stockings, and a man’s button-down, the other in well-fitting jeans, prim flats, and blue lace.

Éponine spins round and round in the rotunda, trying and failing to take in everything at once.  The camera she borrowed from Grantaire is clicking at full speed.  She can’t possibly remember everything at once, but this can remember for her.

The camera stays glued to the window as they drive through gentle hills on fire with autumn leaves and grass so green it actually hurts to look at.  “I’ve never seen so much empty space in my life,” Éponine says delightedly.

“Haven’t you ever been to the countryside?” Cosette asks.

Éponine snorts.  “I’ve been to Staten Island.”

There are a lot of things that Cosette could say.  There are a lot of things she _should_ say.  “I think Courfeyrac is in love with you,” she blurts out, and then she gasps like a girl in a bad 1950s movie because _this wasn’t supposed to happen, she didn’t give her brain permission to say that._

Cosette doesn’t take her eyes from the road but she can feel the force of Éponine’s side-eye.  They can perfectly hear Coeur de Pirate for about five seconds before Éponine bursts out cackling.  Cosette raises an eyebrow.  “Oh, man, oh, man,” Éponine whoops, “you’ve got to be kidding me.  If you were looking for a way to get me to open up, you’ve found it.”  She chokes out, still chuckling.

“It’s not funny!” Cosette says defensively.

“Courfeyrac is in love with _everyone,_ including you, Jehan, and that girl who works at the bagel shop on 123rd,” Éponine says with finality, twirling her hair around her finger and propping her feet on the dash.

\-----

Cosette takes Éponine home the long way, driving all the way through Charlottesville’s downtown.  Éponine pulls out her phone and shoots a low-resolution video.

[Éponine]: This place isn’t even real.  
[Courfeyrac]: it looks kinda like where i grew up!  
[Éponine]: You people can take your adorable little hometowns and shove it.  
[Courfeyrac]:  :)

It takes approximately three minutes for Cosette to drag her suitcase to her room, change into pajamas, and turn on the electric kettle to make tea.  Éponine just stands in the kitchen in stunned silence at the efficiency.  “She does this every time she comes home,” Cosette’s dad explains from behind Éponine, making her jump and spin on her heel.  “Hi, I’m Jean Valjean.  You must be Éponine.”

Éponine holds out her hand, feeling a little nervous.  Parents don’t typically like her, but she promised she’d be on her best behavior.  He’s nearly as big as Bahorel, but he’s smiling kindly and looks distinctly less menacing.  Cosette’s mother, Fantine, is so radiant, it’s a little absurd.  Éponine isn’t sure whether it’s because she’s very beautiful or because contentment and peace seem to ooze out of her pores.  Because of that, Éponine’s not sure whether she loves her or hates her.

They’re just sitting down to dinner when Cosette nearly drops her fork, remembering that she’d forgotten to tell her parents not to play Twenty Questions with Éponine.  She squeezes her eyes shut, silently hoping that luck will be on her side.

“So, Éponine, where are you from?” Fantine asks.

“Oh, um,” Éponine takes a big gulp of water, “I’m from Canarsie.  It’s a neighborhood in Brooklyn.”

 _Okay, not so bad,_ Cosette thinks, listening to Éponine talk about her major, her job at the café, and the internship she’s applied for at a museum.  She relaxes as Éponine talks about her twin sister and little brother and her hobbies.

“So what do your parents do?” her father asks, and Cosette nearly groans.  _Fuck._

Éponine smiles as if at some private joke.  “My mother is in real estate. My father is no longer with us, but he was a salesman.”

Cosette is absolutely astounded.  She _thinks_ she sees Éponine throw her a wink, but it might just be a trick of the light.  “I’m so sorry,” she says later, when they’re sitting cross-legged on her bed.  “I meant to tell them—“

“You don’t have to make excuses for me, Cosette,” Éponine smiles.  “I am what I am.”

“How did you cover so well like that?”

Éponine flops onto her back.  “I’ve been asked that shit before, and it’s _almost_ true—my father did sell things, just not nice things.  And, to be fair, we _do_ actually own a few houses in the neighborhood that we rent out.  To use a fine Virginia expression, ‘This ain’t my first rodeo, sweetheart,’” she says, trying to sound like John Wayne and somehow turning it into Sean Connery.

Cosette snorts.  “I think you’re confusing Virginia with Wyoming.  If you haven’t noticed, _I_ don’t have an accent, and neither does my papa.”

“I know.  You sound just like Bahorel.  If it weren’t for your mom, I’d be disappointed.”

Cosette hugs her knees to her chest.  She is home, and it almost feels right.  Almost.

\-----

Éponine can’t sleep.

The glow from the streetlights filters in through the gauzy curtains.  Éponine props herself up against the headboards and squints in the darkness at the scattered photographs and scraps of Cosette’s memories, thinking not for the first time how accurately Cosette’s room is a reflection of her life.  It is the perfect combination of sweet and sultry, but mostly, it’s neat as a pin.  Jane Austen books flank Gertrude Stein and gender theory; Tchaikovsky sits next to Janis Joplin; and throughout, there are snapshots of Cosette with friends and family, someone who has clearly wanted for nothing.

Stealing a glance at Cosette’s peaceful sleeping form, Éponine quietly swings herself out of bed and pads down the stairs with her book in hand.  Curling up in a corner of the couch, she flicks on a dim light and huddles under it, flipping the book open.  She slips into the story quite easily and mentally pats herself on the back for her determination to ignore things she doesn’t want to think about.  She nearly shrieks when the overhead light comes on, and she jumps like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” Fantine laughs gently.  “I’m a night owl, too, and I was up late grading papers and decided to come down for some cider.  Would you like some?”  Éponine nods quickly, trying to still the galloping of her heart.  She half-expects Fantine to bring her cider and go away, but she’s unsurprised when Fantine sits on the other end of the couch.  “I hope my husband and I didn’t embarrass you by asking you so many questions earlier,” she apologizes.

Something in Éponine’s brain seems to have come loose, either because she’s still recovering from being startled or because it’s almost four in the morning, she’s not sure.  “No, it’s fine,” she says lamely, “it was no trouble at all.”

“I’ve been to Canarsie,” Fantine muses, and Éponine wonders if she’s going to be able to drink anything this weekend without nearly choking herself in surprise.

“I’m so sorry,” she jokes darkly, and Fantine laughs.

“I went to grad school in New York, and being a small-town girl, I wanted to explore everything I could,” Fantine smiles at the memory.  “I wouldn’t want to stay, though…New York has a way of making a person hard.”  The cider is spicy-sweet and hot as it slides into Éponine’s belly.  _Life would be easier for me if I were hard,_ she thinks.  Almost as if she can hear Éponine’s thoughts, Fantine turns her doe eyes to Éponine’s.  “Forgive me for saying so, but I can tell you’ve been through a lot.  I’m glad that it hasn’t made you hard, and I hope it doesn’t.”

Of all the ways Éponine should react to a near-stranger’s kindness, snorting into her mug of cider probably isn’t the best way.  “Ms. Fauchelevent,” she half-chortles,  “I don’t know a lot about my family history, but I do know my ancestors were gypsies, so I can pretty much safely assume that life is a perpetual struggle.”  Maybe it’s the tiredness making her bold, or maybe it’s because even though she _does l_ ike Cosette’s parents, being in their house with their kindness and nice things and _functioning heat, mother of god_ is just a reminder to Éponine that Coestte’s life is everything hers never has been and never will be—gilded and lace-edged perfection.  “I probably _don’t_ need to tell you that my father wasn't really a salesman,” Éponine says frankly.  “Unless you count stolen goods and the occasional narcotics.” 

She can’t stop herself, and there is a tiny part of her that is sorry and ashamed to be airing her dirty laundry when Cosette’s parents have been nothing but kind, and if they dropped her off at the bus station she wouldn’t be very surprised.  But Fantine is watching her carefully.  “Jean, my husband, isn’t Cosette’s father,” she says with practiced calm.  Éponine bites back the harsh “so?” on the tip of her tongue.  Honestly, she’d be relieved if the man she called ‘father’ really wasn’t.  She shakes herself back to reality as Fantine lapses into recollections.  “I was in graduate school, and I thought I was in love.  I thought we would get married.  Even after Cosette was born and the months went by and I didn’t hear from him and couldn’t even find him, I thought he’d come back.”

She falls silent, as if unsure of whether or not Éponine wants to hear, but Éponine nods.

“I had to quit grad school to work.  I was lucky that we were able to get a place at a women’s shelter, so I didn’t have to worry about rent anymore, but I don’t think anyone really anticipates how much a baby costs until you have one.  Then I was diagnosed.”

“Diagnosed…?”

“With colon cancer.  Metastatic.  I mean, for god’s sake, right?” Fantine laughs without humor.  “Nobody expects aggressive colon cancer when you’re twenty-four, but the doctors assured me it had been known to happen, especially if I had a family history.  Of course, I didn’t have health insurance.  When you’re young and healthy, why pay for something you think you’ll never need?  The saving grace was that my parents were dead and I had an inheritance.  But as I got sicker from treatment, I couldn’t take care of Cosette like she needed or deserved, so I had her put into foster care, so I could get her back if I ever got better.”

Éponine stares at her with wide eyes.  Fantine hasn’t raised her voice or outwardly betrayed her perpetual sense of calm, but she radiates anger instead of happiness.

“The hardest thing I have ever done in my life is look at my two-year-old and give her up to the care of strangers.”  She pauses to collect herself.  “It probably seems like everything is fine.”  She sighs.  “It’s not.”

Éponine feels vaguely itchy.

“I went into remission two years later.  But I’d cleaned out my savings and my medical bills were sky-high.  There was no way I could actively support a child while trying to pay off my debts.  I went back into the women’s shelter and worked every job my sanity could handle.  I got Cosette back when she was eight.  I’m lucky in that her last foster parent was Jean, but the damage was already done.”

Éponine swallows, and her throat is painfully dry.

“Cosette doesn’t remember the foster homes.  She’s blocked them out, I suppose, but I’m not so stupid as to think that all—or really any but the last—were good experiences.  She might not remember them now, but she certainly remembered them when she was younger.  She knew words no child should know, told stories of things no child should see…but the worst of it is how she blames me.”

Here is where Éponine would reassure Cosette’s pretty mother that it’s not _her_ fault she got cancer, but her mouth seems to have stopped working.

“While she was in foster care, she turned me into a superhero.  I think most children probably think their parents are small gods when they’re very young, but that goes away pretty quickly…unless, of course, your parents aren’t there to show you their shortcomings.  So, you see, when I got her back for good, she had very high expectations of what I would be like.  Needless to say, I’ve been disappointing her ever since.”  Fantine lets out a barking laugh.  “It’s been very hard for her to get over her idea of what I should be, and sometimes she’s still not over it.  It’s gotten so much better since she went away to college, but sometimes I wonder…” 

Fantine seems to come out of her trance and realize that she’s not alone in the room.  Her eyes soften as she takes in Éponine’s stricken face.  “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry to trouble you with this, and I hope you don’t think that my experiences in any way make yours less important.”  She takes Éponine’s hand gently.  “I guess the point of telling you all this was to tell you to love as much as you can.” 

Éponine crawls back into bed not long afterward, her mind buzzing with exhaustion and confusion.  Tentatively, she reaches out and takes Cosette’s hand, slipping into sleep.

\-----

Cosette wakes Éponine up at noon, and for once, Éponine is instantly awake and doesn’t fly awake with claws and fists.  “We need to talk,” she breathes.

Cosette hands her a cup of coffee and Éponine calmly explains everything, starting with the late night talk with Fantine and ending with Marius and Courfeyrac.

“So…wait.  You weren’t in love with Marius,” Cosette says, feeling distinctly strange talking about her boyfriend as if he’s someone she doesn’t know.

“Nope.  I was in love with the _idea_ of him.  Trust me, honey, he’s all yours.”

Cosette laughs lightly.  “All joking aside, Courf really _is_ in love with you.”

“I know.”

“Are you in love with him?”

“I don’t know.”  Éponine rests her chin on her knees, scraggly hair spilling over her legs.

“That’s okay.”

\-----

Éponine holds her phone in front of her and hits ‘record.’  “I’m Éponine Middle-Name-Redacted Thénardier, and this is a proposal.”  She laughs and shivers in the November air.  “Um…I like cats and the color blue.  I’m afraid of spiders, big dogs, and drowning.  I once accidentally dyed my own hair purple.  The _His Dark Materials_ series consumed my life in middle school.  On three occasions I have cried in public, all of them at symphony concerts.  And,” she pauses for dramatic effect and to gather her nerves, “I would like to ask you, James Francis Courfeyrac, on a date.  No gimmick.  No joke.  Just…a date.  Maybe we could start with going to the art history department’s end-of-term formal?”  She giggles again, feeling foolish.  “Okay.  I’m freezing.  I’ll see you soon.  Bye, Courf.”

\-----

Éponine is standing outside of the Corinth getting a breath of air when she feels warm breath tickling her ear.  “Purple hair, eh?”

She spins.  “Hi,” she says nervously, feeling a pump of shaky excitement.  Courfeyrac grins, showing off dimples and two slightly crooked teeth in a smattering of straight ones.  “Yeah, purple,” she giggles.  “It was kind of liberating, actually, until I got suspended from school.”

He throws his head back and laughs.  “Of course.”  His head comes forward and his chocolate eyes lock on hers.  “You asked me on a date.”

“So I did.”  She fiddles with the cuffs of her coat.

“Why?”

She shuffles her feet like a little kid.  “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

 _Dammit, Courfeyrac._ “I reckon I…kind of…like you, maybe,” she says lamely, feeling red in the face.

Courfeyrac’s triumphant smile could light up the whole city.  “Yes, Éponine, I will be your escort to your snooty art history formal.  But there’s just one condition.”

“You can’t put a condition on a date I asked you to!” she bristles indignantly.

“It’s but a small thing, my lady, so insignificant you’ll hardly think of it,” he bows theatrically.  “This lowly squire merely inquires as to the young lady’s middle name, oft-mentioned yet never spoken.”

Éponine regards him coolly, lips mashed together.  “Do you, Jamie Courfeyrac, solemnly swear on your very soul that you will never breathe a word to anyone, living or dead, for as long as you live, under pain of castration?”

He winces, but holds out his pinky in offering.  Groaning, she locks pinkies with him and reaches to whisper in her ear, lest ghosts in the alley overhear.

He’s still chuckling when they go back in the bar, and she’s still pummeling him inefficiently with her tiny fists.

A week later, he shows up at her apartment in a suit tailored so well it should be illegal, and she’s wearing a plum-colored dress that hugs all her curves.  “Hello,” he says quietly, taking in her glossy curled hair, shining eyes, and the swell of her breasts above the neckline of the dress.

Éponine stares at him for the space of two heartbeats before taking two steps forward, gripping the lapels of his jacket, and kissing him so fiercely their teeth knock together.  His hands go around her shoulders as he lifts her up off the ground.  “I am in love with you, and you need to know,” she spits out between showering him with tiny kisses like stars.

From behind them, Cosette lets out a wild whoop.  “It’s about goddamn time.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back!!  
> This is a gift for Zoe, my sun and stars. Enjoy bb :)  
> I hope all of you enjoyed! I have some more things on the drawing board so expect more as the semester winds down...if it ever winds down...  
> Also, if you're interested/have a few bucks to spare, I signed up to be an author for the AO3 Auction, all the proceeds go to AO3 so it can keep running and growing. If you want to see my page or any of the other (spectacular and wonderfully talented and way better than me I promise) authors, go to ao3auction.tumblr.com .  
> Love you all, facekisses abounding.


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